Corporate welfare
Background Corporate welfare explained at Wikipedia. Corporate welfare describes a government's bestowal of grants and/or tax breaks on one or more corporations. The term corporate welfare contrasts welfare payments to the poor and implies that corporations are much less deserving than poor citizens. Much corporate welfare is pure pork barreling. Contracts are given to inefficient businesses in a politician's district or because of major campaign donors. Many instances of corporate welfare give entry points for corruption. Acts of corporate welfare come at the expense of the citizens and are uneven distributions that occur at the expense of other corporations as well. Corporate welfare deals take money out of the public treasury and in-turn take money from the needy. Furthermore, corporate welfare deals absorb time and attention of elected politicians who should be focused on other problems and issues. Plenty of attention was devoted to the building of the stadiums and convention center while nobody cared about basic services such as merging 911 services, tax assessments and parks infrastructure. * Planks on Corporate Welfare from Mark Rauterkus * Corporate_welfare-plank-MacYipper419 from March 2007 from the MacYapper blog * Corporate-welfare-editorial-McNickle From November 2007 by Colin McNickle Links: * Corporatism * TIFs Media * US Airways breaks ground on operations center - Pittsburgh Business Times, September 2007, Moon, US Airways * Law may clinch Westinghouse expansion November 20, 2006, by Tom Barnes, Post-Gazette Harrisburg Bureau -- Gov. Ed Rendell signed a bill today that is aimed at persuading Westinghouse Electric Co. to stay and expand in Pennsylvania by locating its new engineering campus, with at least 1,500 additional employees, in one of three southwestern Pennsylvania sites. Flanked at a news conference by state Sen. Sean Logan, D, Monroeville, and Rep. Mike Turzai, R, Bradford Woods, Mr. Rendell noted that other states, especially North Carolina and South Carolina, are trying to woo Westinghouse out of Pennsylvania and said the new incentives in the bill could help keep it here. ::The bill signed by Ed Rendell in November, 2006, creates up to four "Strategic Development Areas'' around the state, where the state will give a 15-year abatement on sales taxes, corporate net incomes taxes and the corporate stock and franchise tax to larger companies willing to stay in the state. * Political coaching to Swann on corporate welfare from Trib editorial page's, Colin McNickle, from April, 2006. * Dave Copeland's article on Berlin's failed urban planning * Corporate Welfare No Boon for Philadelphia Job Market by Nathan A. Benefield in April, 2006 * P-G coverage in April, 2006 for Westmoreland's Upper Burrell plant: Pennsylvania offered Siemens several incentives to upgrade the plant, including a $2.5 million government package that includes low-interest loans and $300,000 in tax credits. * P-G, April, 2006, Hospital Expansion Gov. Ed Rendell presented $4.5 million to support Magee-Womens Research Institute's building expansion. The 70,000-square-foot addition at Halket and Craft in Oakland provides more labs, offices and support services. * Ex-Mayor still bitter whine in Trib on April 23, 2006 :Nearly four months after leaving office, former Pittsburgh Mayor Tom Murphy is still whining about the Trib taking him to task over handouts to private developers. :Speaking at Chatham College last week, Murphy noted that Alabama officials created an incentive package worth hundreds of millions to lure a Mercedes plant to the Camellia State. :"They essentially built a plant for Mercedes. The Tribune-Review would hang you out to dry if we gave that kind of public money for a private company," he said. :In another aside, Murphy didn't cite the Trib by name but we're fairly certain he was talking about us when he said some of his development schemes involving heavy public subsidies met resistance. :"I had a newspaper in town that hated the philosophy of that," he said. * Latrobe Brewery deal from June 2006 PA * PA Investment Tracker CA * Corporate personhood category: finance